In the Grip of It

by Sheena Kamal

  Beneath the thrum of whispers, there’s another sound. Footsteps coming into the building. Then a cool voice cuts through. “Shut up right now, all of you. Get back to your rooms.”

  “But what do we do with her?”

  I don’t hear the response. Several walk away, one, quite literally, dragging his feet. I think of the boy—no, the young man—whose knee I kicked in the struggle.

  I’m feeling angry, and wish I’d kicked his knee harder. But he’s just a kid, really, and I’d clearly surprised him and his girlfriend as they were sneaking back into the building. It’s hard to blame young love, so I guess I’m back to blaming myself for being stupid enough to get caught like this. I’m glad, in a way, that I have. Because aside from Ken Barnes’s fears and suspicions, I now know for a fact that something is deeply wrong here at Spring Love. I have to wonder why they shut me in here in the first place. Why the building itself has been locked down. Why those kids felt the need to sneak away to be together. If this really was a racially harmonious sex cult, would they not just let those teenagers be?

  I think back to a few moments before everyone left, and what I heard. I am good with voices, better than good. It’s maybe because I was once a blues singer, because the words don’t mean as much as the voice beneath them. What the voice is truly saying. And that no matter what tone, what context I hear a voice in, it’s always immediately recognizable to me, in all its forms.

  What I heard was Vikram Sharma come in and tell my confused kidnappers to get back to sleep. He sounded different. Cold. Calculated. The warmth was gone because he wasn’t lying.

  Someone approaches. No, more than one person. There’s a sense that I’m being considered, weighed, evaluated. The smell of vanilla coming through the bottom of the door is a sudden onslaught to my senses.

  I hear Vikram say “. . . Can’t afford to take the chance . . .”

  Then Cheyenne, I think, chimes in: “. . . not sure she’s a cop.” There’s true remorse in her voice. She seems sad. Well I’m sad, too. I didn’t want it to be a sex cult but, right now, I think I would take a bunch of perverts over whatever the hell I’ve found here, which suddenly seems much, much worse.

  “Water, please,” I say, speaking through the bottom of the door.

  There’s a pause. Some more consideration of me, perhaps.

  They walk away, but the smell of vanilla lingers. I stop paying attention again, hit by another wave of nausea. I close my eyes for a second and when I open them, I’m too late to catch the door opening. A small bottle is shoved through, but it isn’t water. When I unscrew the cap, I find some of the green smoothie from dinner. It’s chilled, at least, feels good going down my throat.

  For a few minutes, I feel better. But my head is still swimming. My mind wanders.

  I have been thinking about my future recently. When I first went back to work, Seb and Leo (who share office space) exchanged concerned glances and told me they thought I should consider a less-dangerous business. After what I’d been through looking for my birth daughter, knowing that PI work can be boring but isn’t exactly danger free, they thought there could be something else for me.

  So what did I do?

  I doubled down.

  “I want my license,” I said to Leo, who, along with our surveillance guy, Stevie Warsame, is a licensed PI. You have to be, to work in Vancouver. Leo was unhappy about me continuing in this line of work, but he eventually relented. I’m too valuable an employee to lose, anyway. But I had to start putting in the hours, officially, even though I’d unofficially been doing this work for a couple years now. Stevie Warsame refused to help train me because of my unpredictable nature and my habit of looking at him as though he’s lying, which he doesn’t do very often, and when he does it’s only about mundane things like where he buys his clothes.

  Thinking back on it, of course I should have listened to reason.

  I’m in a cellar, though for some reason it feels as though I’m on a boat. There are no windows here and the light switch is on the other side of the door. There’s no lock on the doorknob, or above it either, which means the door is bolted shut from the outside. I go down thirteen steps and feel my way around the space. The darkness is almost as oppressive as the heat I’ve been complaining about all summer, but I’d take the sun any day if it means getting out of this place. On the opposite side of the room is a set of stone steps leading up to another door. I’m guessing, to the exterior of the building.

  That’s as far as I get.

  I don’t get sick immediately, but when I do, it hits me hard. It’s like the worst cramps I’ve ever had, multiplied by a thousand. I’m sweating, with my face pressed into the wall. My heart is beating fast and I can hear sounds in the darkness—terrible, awful scratching sounds. As though there are rats all around. It feels as though I’ve been taken by some kind of madness, that I’m in the grip of it. A light appears on the other side of the room, at the top of the stone steps. Someone has thrown open the cellar doors. I make it up the stairs and outside into the morning light.

  “Oh my God. How did you manage to lock yourself in the cellar?” asks Wanda, out of nowhere. She walks toward me, concern writ plain on her face. “Were you taking a peek, and someone accidentally locked the door on you?”

  “I need a doctor,” I say.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you some help.”

  Thank God. I’m half dragged, half carried to the pickup truck, which is conveniently close by. Was it on the path when I came down here? Wanda squeezes my hand as she helps me into the truck. What else am I supposed to do? I can’t stop staring at the moon, hoping it will ground me somehow. It should be fading in the dim morning light, but is perversely still around to confuse me. Why is it still so bright? I decide I am going insane.

  Wanda drives me to the emergency department of the island’s tiny hospital, where she immediately takes charge. “Her name is Nora Watts and she just came to us yesterday. I found her in our cellar. I think she ate some poisonous mushrooms, got sick, and fell down the stairs.”

  “No,” I say. My face feels red, then pink and blue. My face feels colors, even though that’s absurd, and yet it makes perfect sense.

  “It might be too late to pump her stomach,” says the doctor. I hate his face. I hate that he believes her. “We sometimes use benzodiazepines for sedation but she might be here for the drugs.”

  “She might,” says Wanda. “We do get those types every now and then.”

  “She’s lying,” I gasp.

  “Oh, sweetie, why didn’t you come to us when you started feeling sick?” Wanda asks. Why is she still here? “We would have brought you here right away.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Wanda take the doctor aside. “We get these drugged-out types every now and then, looking to volunteer with us. I found some pills in her bag—”

  Which she hands to the hovering nurse.

  “Painkillers. Have a prescription. My shoulder,” I say. But nobody listens.

  “Will do, Wanda. Thanks for bringing her in. This happens all the time. There was a man that came in a few months ago with ayahuasca in his system.”

  Another debilitating attack of cramps takes my attention, but not before I notice Wanda’s slight hesitation. “God, yes, I heard it at the farmer’s market. Crazy.”

  Then the attention is back on me. “Do you know what mushrooms she ate?”

  “If it is mushrooms at all—that’s just a guess on my part. But you know we leave the dedicated forest spaces on our property alone. She was free to wander about. We only had her helping out with dinner prep but didn’t see much of her after that. She may have even brought the mushrooms with her. Usually it’s marijuana we watch out for, especially around the kids, but people surprise you.”

  I watch Wanda and the doctor shake hands. Wanda walks away. She does not look back.

  If you think about it, it’s very, very clever. The drugs in my system. An alleged fall down the stairs to explain the bruisi
ng around my eye, which I’m just now starting to feel. And since they’ve clearly decided I’m not an undercover cop, who cares what happens to me as long as I leave?

  I look at my backpack, lying there innocently on a chair. I think about Wanda going through it while I was in the kitchen, pawing my meager possessions, taking note of my ID, copying my personal information down, sniffing my toiletries and judging the condition of my underwear. I decide then and there that they couldn’t possibly think I’m a cop. To them, I’m an unknown. They couldn’t find anything in the backpack, but they seem to know I’m not with the law. Which means that I’m utterly expendable. At first, they were interested in finding out what I want. Now, that’s no longer the case. They just want me gone.

  The almost crippling nausea ebbs but doesn’t go away for a long time. After a few tests, the doctor decides against pumping my stomach, and settles for giving me an antinauseant and hooking me up to an IV. The nurse asks me if she can call a cab to the ferry that will take me back to Vancouver.

  “Sure,” I say. I turn my phone on, but there are no messages. Seb and Leo must be too busy enjoying their staycation to check in. That’s okay. I’ll talk to them soon enough.

  When I get to the ferry terminal, I watch the cab turn around after picking up a passenger from the ferry that just came in. I buy an assortment of snacks from the vending machine and a ginger ale to wash it all down. Then I wait until the ferry departs. It only takes a moment of silence with the night, the ocean, the trees behind me, to recalibrate. I’m no longer hallucinating, so I can appreciate the beauty in front of me. This island is so stunning it almost hurts. What a perfect place to set up a sex cult that is clearly so much more than a sex cult.

  It’s not even 9 a.m. but the sun is shining brightly. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and head back into town. A helpful employee of BC Ferries allows me to hitch a ride, and seems happy to share some salt and vinegar chips with me along the way.

  “What’s the deal with Spring Love Farm?” I ask. “I’m thinking of volunteering with them.”

  “Oh, you should! They’re a staple at the farmers’ market, and they send their produce all over the lower mainland. Their stall at the market used to have blackberry-apple pies that were to die for.”

  “But not anymore?”

  “No,” she says, frowning. “Not anymore. I wonder why.”

  I don’t. Baking is a fine art. They must be too busy poisoning people to put in the time. By my count, they have already poisoned me twice. Once with the cocoa last night, whatever they’d put in there masked by the bitter dark drink that someone handed to me. I didn’t finish it, but I remember the nausea and lightheadedness started within an hour of my first sip. The odd look on Cheyenne’s face when I poured the rest of the drink in the fire. The second time was with the green smoothie, and it hit me like a train because I was so out of it and thirsty that I drank the whole thing.

  Despite Wanda’s act back at the hospital, she couldn’t hide her true intentions. The people at Spring Love wanted me to leave by any means necessary. They made me sick to get me off the property because they thought it would keep me away.

  They were wrong.

  Chapter 6

  After purchasing two liters of water in plastic jugs, I take a room in a cheap inn, which seems the safest bet to stay out of sight for now.

  The painkillers are a temptation that I give into because my shoulder hurts too much to let me sleep easily. I pop two of them and wash them down with a glass of water. The greater temptation is to reach for something stronger than water, but I have kicked that particular habit with great difficulty. When Bonnie went missing, I started drinking again, after many hard difficult years of sobriety. It was stupid, and I’ve regretted it ever since, especially since it took every ounce of my willpower to stop. Whisper had been unhappy with my regression—I could feel it. So whenever I want a drink, I imagine the judgment in my dog’s eyes, which is what I do now.

  The toilets in this inn smell faintly of sulphur, which is normal on the islands. That’s okay. Unpleasant, but not much of a bother. The bed isn’t comfortable, but I sleep anyway. I wake after an hour, drink some more water and eat a power bar, the remainder of my vending-machine snacks. The cramps are gone, and now there’s only a lingering headache. By the time I call Leo, I’m feeling much, much better than I did this morning. I am refreshed and unpoisoned, and there isn’t a whole lot in life better than that.

  “Okay, wait. They poisoned you?” Leo asks, after I explained to him the events of the past twenty-four hours. “With psychedelic mushrooms?”

  “I won’t be able to prove it. It’s their word against mine.”

  Leo is appalled. “Nora, get on the next ferry back! I’ll take over from here.”

  “No. What about your staycation?”

  “Come on. It will be fine to leave this one to me after all you’ve been through. Besides, Seb has a few meetings today, so I guess the staycation of our dreams is over.” There’s a little hitch in his voice. “Who even came up with the idea of a staycation anyway? It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking. Look, I know you probably want to do this on your own, and we can’t really afford to have more than one person on this case, but to hell with it. I could use the distraction. And I’m supposed to be supervising you a little more closely anyway.”

  If it were just about the supervision, I would protest. But it’s not. Leo’s sadness over his disappointing staycation is too great to ignore. I would rather do this on my own, but I could use his help. “Come over. I’ll meet you in town and we’ll work on it together.”

  “You’re not leaving before you figure this out, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I should have expected that. I can catch the next ferry. I should be there by evening.”

  “We need more on Vikram Sharma. He’s the key.” I can’t forget his voice, telling those workers to get back to bed.

  “On it,” Leo says. “See you soon.”

  “Wait, how’s Whisper?”

  “Seb took her with him today, so she’s doing just fine.”

  “To his meetings?”

  “Yeah. Apparently I’m a distraction, but she’s not.” He hangs up.

  I don’t blame Seb for choosing Whisper as his companion for the day. I would do the same thing, but I’m not in a committed relationship with one of the nicest men on the planet. Leo’s sadness and disappointment bothers me, but it’s none of my business. It’s just not like Seb to be this inconsiderate. I have been in their lives since they fell in love and I’m getting the feeling that I’m watching them fall out of it. Now I’m disappointed and sad, too. But I can’t let that distract me. Ken Barnes agreed to our quote, which included a budget for expenses. The budget is fair, but not exactly generous. We don’t have that much time to bring him information on his son’s welfare, and we really haven’t made much progress.

  A ten-minute walk takes me to the center of the Ganges village, by the harbor. It’s small, quaint. In the mid-morning light, it looks like the most innocent place in the world. Blue skies and blue ocean. Pretty boats on the water. I even see some paddle boarders out, a few doing yoga on their boards, as if this hippy shit can’t be contained on land and must spread out onto the ocean, too.

  One of the yoga paddle boarders loses balance and topples into the water. I choke back a surprised laugh because karma is not only a bitch, but she also has a great sense of humor, and that’s when the teenage girl from last night comes up to me and shoves at my shoulders. Not enough to send me flying, but enough to set me off balance.

  “Leave us alone!” she says, her eyes ablaze with a righteous fury that I don’t understand. “We need this job!”

  I’m too shocked to do anything but stare as she turns on her heel, yanks the strap of her heavy backpack, which had slipped down her arm, and stalks away. It takes me a moment to go after her, and since she had the element of surprise I lose her in the grocery store, a large chain. />
  What was that about?

  It reminds me of something Cheyenne said. About Salt Spring historically being a refuge for the black community. Maybe it’s still perceived as some kind of refuge. In the past year there has been a spike of asylum seekers crossing into Vancouver from the Peace Arch park in Washington. They are mostly people of color, like this teenager. If Spring Love is using migrant labor, maybe this is a way for the undocumented to make some money while their claims are being processed. And maybe it would appeal to someone’s romantic notions of revisiting history. But then why isolate them at the farm and have them come to the kitchens at different times? Why the separation?

  Maybe there’s something they don’t want these workers to see.

  I leave the grocery-store parking lot. Ganges is surprisingly busy, which makes me wonder if there’s something going on. Sure enough, I see stalls set up for the Saturday farmers’ market. On the chance that my system is able to handle something more substantial than a vending-machine snack, I get a small coffee and a breakfast sandwich from a nearby cafe. Then I sit outside to watch the market.

  Though the market is in full swing, the Spring Love stall is bare. Within a few minutes, however, the farm’s pickup truck pulls up and I watch Vikram, Cheyenne, and Trevor unload the produce from the back. Their stall is smaller than the others, with less available for purchase. They do brisk business, but that is owed largely to Vikram and Cheyenne’s personal touch. They give warm smiles and handshakes to everyone who shows interest. Trevor is a nice addition to the picture—a thin, silent boy who doesn’t smile but works the cash box, taking money, counting change, and putting purchases in paper bags for the customers.

  An efficient operation, sure, but there’s something that bothers me about it. It’s like the act of a play performed for an audience that’s content to accept what is shown without even attempting to scratch off the surface veneer. As I continue to take them in, I realize it’s an insult, a farce. Vikram and Cheyenne are no more interested in selling farm-fresh produce than I am. It’s only Trevor who seems to notice this. He watches them carefully from behind the cash. It’s not obvious, but my years in foster care have taught me a little bit about reading a child’s body language. He looks to Cheyenne for instructions, but ignores Vikram completely. Pretending, I think, that Vikram doesn’t exist. It’s subtle and invisible to everyone around him, but I am certain that Trevor hates his mother’s new boyfriend.